


playing for keeps

by followsrabbit



Category: SKAM (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-04
Updated: 2017-08-04
Packaged: 2018-12-11 01:58:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11704434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/followsrabbit/pseuds/followsrabbit
Summary: Eva hadn't expected this much enthusiasm from Chris when she asked him to pretend they were dating.





	playing for keeps

They fell onto Noora’s couch somewhere between four and five a.m., too tired to mind the close fit and narrow cushions. Chris had planned to leave Eva’s party with her from the minute he’d stepped out of William’s car—fine, from the second he’d known he’d be free for it—but he’d pictured them heading out to a bar or a club. Somewhere with tequila shots, dim lighting, and loud music.

(Or to her bedroom. His. Those worked too.)

As Eva mumbled her eyes shut and molded her back against his chest, Chris decided that he didn’t mind the way things had gone. “Happy birthday, stalker,” he said into her neck, letting his lips linger there.

He might have thought she’d passed out—she’d drank enough—if not for her belated, mumbled reply. “It’s not my birthday anymore.” She slanted her chin to look back at him. “I hate when it’s not my birthday anymore.” Shots and champagne continued to soak her breath and voice, painting them both a bit breathier, a bit sulkier than usual.

Chris smirked down at her. He liked all variations of Eva, but drunk, sleepy Eva had her moments. (Even with her make-up smudged around her eyes and her hair scrambled.) (Especially with her smudged make-up and scrambled hair.) “It’ll happen again next year.” (Fuck, he’d lost any right to give William shit about Noora.)

A long sigh slipped from Eva’s mouth. “But next year is so _far_.”

Such a long-suffering sigh that Chris couldn’t help but muffle a laugh into her shoulder. “We can have a second birthday party tomorrow,” he said, sliding his palm along the slit in her dress, the bare skin within. “Just us.”

An objectively ridiculous amount of triumph widened his grin when he heard her giggle. “So selfless.”

A very serious nod. “I try.”

“Mhm.”

And then he was closing his eyes, about to give himself over to sleep and the, no doubt, pounding hangover that would follow, when—“Chris?”

He tightened his arms around her, and pressed a shushing sound into her hair.

“I slept with Jonas.”

Chris’s eyes peeled open. Eva had already turned to face him again, dragging her lower lip between her teeth. Usually, he’d bite it for her. Now, he shook his head, brow creased and lips stretched into his easiest, autopilot smile. “What?”

“Earlier this week.”

He couldn’t stop shaking his head, couldn’t fix his face out of its fake fucking smile. “Great?” he said, even though nothing seemed great at all. The girl he’d just told William he might love was fucking her ex-boyfriend. And he didn’t even have any room to be pissed about it, because she wasn’t his girlfriend, because their hook-ups had never had strings, because she wasn’t his.

(But she was with him right now. No one else. There was that.)

She shook her head too, with one decisive jerk. “Not great. Now he wants to get back together.”

Chris could have told her months ago that Jonas wanted her back—who the hell wouldn’t—but swallowed that particular insight. Focused on her other words: _not great_. “You don’t?” He could have told her that Jonas was a pretentious asshole too, and that she seemed several hundred times happier now, with him, than she had when he first met her.

(But he didn’t.) (Eva wasn’t _with him_ , not really.) (Not yet.)

Another jerk of her head. "So when he cornered me about it at my party”—she cringed—“I kind of told him that we’d just started dating?”

His bullshit smile finally faltered. “Elaborate plan.” Chris’s face went black, before resetting, before _grinning_ from his mouth to his eyes. “If you wanted to be my girlfriend, you could have just told me. Asked me out. Sent a love letter, maybe.”

Eva shoved at him, soft enough that it felt more like a pat. “I _knew_ I should have said Adam,” she mumbled, before rolling back to her side. “So much less smug.”

Chris didn’t know who Adam was, but didn’t blink before replying, “Yeah, but you like me more.”

She shrugged against his chest. He’d take that to mean _true._

“So I’m your boyfriend now?” he teased a moment later, resting a palm on her hip.

“Fake boyfriend,” she said into a couch cushion.

Just as well that she wasn’t facing him anymore—he couldn’t stop smirking.

* * *

The thing about being Eva’s fake boyfriend was, he could do all the cheesy, romantic shit he wanted and play it off as a joke. For instance: he could knock on her bedroom window with a surprise bouquet of daffodils, and pretend it was a game.

(If this was a game, it was one he intended to win.)

Hair pulled back into a lopsided bun, Eva closed her laptop, slid her long, bare legs out of bed, and stood to open the window for him with a raised brow.

Chris maneuvered his way inside with what he’d call considerable grace—he’d had enough practice—before placing the flowers into her skeptical hands and then spreading his arms wide. “Fake boyfriend reporting for duty.”

Eva raised the bright petals up to her nose, even as she rolled her eyes. Chris tallied a victory for himself. “I can’t believe I told you.”

“Nah, it’s good you did,” he said, flopping down on her unmade bed when she went to set the flowers on her desk. “Communication is the key to any healthy relationship.”

Her oversized, red t-shirt wavered across her pale thighs as she joined him on her wrinkled sheets; Chris tracked its hem with hooded eyes.

“Which you’re the expert on.”

“Who do you think William gets advice from?”

That got him a breath of laughter. “William and Noora just spent eight months sulking in different countries because of shitty communication.”

“I know.” Chris cast a baleful glance up at the ceiling. “If he’d only listened to me…”

Rolling her eyes again, Eva turned to push him down onto the mattress with both palms. “We can communicate now,” she murmured, spreading her knees around his hips. “Or you can kiss me.”

His hands shot up to tug her face down to his. He hadn’t actually come to hook up with Eva—for once—but he could multi-task. Especially when multi-tasking involved his tongue in Eva’s mouth and his palms on the warm skin beneath her t-shirt.

Moments later, Chris had her flipped beneath him, his fingers rising past her ribcage, and a grin on his face. “No bra?”

She smirked up at him. “I wasn’t expecting visitors.” Fuck, he loved her smirks.

“Not even your fake boyfriend?”

He was pretty sure she mumbled _shut up_ into his mouth before kissing him again. 

* * *

Chris did not get around to the multi-tasking part of his visit until Eva rolled off of him and into her pillow, her auburn hair thoroughly disheveled against her bare shoulders. She glanced over at him. “I have to ask you something. While you’re in a good mood.”

He drawled his fingers from the curve of her chest to the dip of her waist to the flare of hips. “Ask me naked then.”

Eva arched an eyebrow at him, and pulled her sheets up to her collarbone. Chris might have minded if he didn’t feel so confident that he could talk her out of them again in under a minute. “I’m going to this party,” she started.

“I’m in.”

“There probably won’t be alcohol.” Confusion stretched across his face, amusement across hers. “It’s Sana’s Eid party, and I wouldn’t ask, but Jonas is going, and…”

He found a smirk of his own. “And you need a fake boyfriend?”

“Exactly.”

“Done.” And the thing was—they could have been done there. Chris had come to ask Eva out on a date with him, a real date, and now they had one. Easy. Sorted. No work required on his part. “Or…” he felt himself licking his lips. “You could take your real boyfriend.” (Easy was overrated.)

Chris wasn’t sure when he’d started to think of Eva as more than a hook-up or a friend, only that it went back before her birthday party. Before the military, even. Only that he really fucking liked knowing that her ex thought she was his now. That should have been enough.

Eva narrowed her eyes at him. “But I don’t have a real boyfriend.”

“You could.” Should have been enough—but wasn’t.

A snort. “You don’t want to be my boyfriend.”

“Why not?”

Leaning her lips back against his, she took her time murmuring, “Because you’ve told me that you hate being a boyfriend.” He had. Multiple times. Chris kind of wanted to punch himself for it now.

“Hated,” he corrected instead. “Past tense. I’ve grown.”

“Oh, really?” She was still pressed against him, still trailing her mouth along his jaw, so Chris didn’t take her skepticism overly hard.

“Healthy relationship expert now,” he said, curling his fingers through her hair. “Remember?”

“Right,” she said, laughed, slid her swollen lips against his again. “Let’s try a date first.”

She had to be able to feel the size of his grin, because a moment later, she added, “Don’t be so smug. I might not put out on a first date.”

(He still felt pretty damn smug.)

(Pretty damn happy.)

(Same difference.)


End file.
